Saturday, 28 August 2010

Bible Reading

If you read my blog last year you will see that i stupidly tried to read ten chapters of God's Word a day over 90 days. Clearly it didn't work...

Regularly reading the Bible has always been something i have somewhat struggled with and although I've tried many times to regularly set aside time for reading and prayer, it's never gone further than a few weeks at most. Which to be quite frank, was a disgrace. God through the work on the Cross of His Son Jesus Christ has saved me from his wrath yet I can't even be bothered to spend a few minutes reading His Word?

When we moved out into Wiltshire and I was about to start commuting around 4 hours a day (yes you read that correctly) I decided that I cannot excuse myself from this discipline anymore. So on the first day I boarded the High Speed Train at Hungerford to Paddington, I didn't take out my Blackberry to look at work e-mails, or my iPhone to look at Facebook. I simply hung my jacket up, took out my Bible and started reading from the book of Joshua in the Old Testament (this was as far as I'd ever got before in the OT), however I have now almost finished reading 2 Kings so I'm getting there!

Old Testament narrative is very tough to understand sometimes. The Apostle Paul wrote that "all Scripture is profitable and useful..." yet as my Dad said, it's sometimes quite hard to see where the profit is! I must confess that I have found it somewhat difficult to reconcile the image of a loving God to the One who ordered the killing of thousands and thousands of people. Yet on the other hand, who am I to judge God? He is righteous, just and holy in all He does no matter how difficult that is for me as a fallen being to understand. Thankfully as Christians, we have the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds to the truths contained therein and we don't have to rely on our own ideas and judgements.

Just in case you are worried that I am in a constant state of confusion wondering why the Kings of Israel are mentioned in such detail, I am also going through JC Ryle's Expository Thoughts on Mark which I thoroughly recommend. Ryle points us to Christ throughout his writings and taking us back to the Scriptures to see Him.